So after recently finishing "The Confusion" (see below), waiting for the
final book in that series, I picked up in the airport "The Da Vinci Code".
About 2/3 through it, and it's probably not good style to review a book
while not having finished it, but maybe it'll be interesting to see how
my opinion changes when I finish it. Basically, compared to Stephenson's
books, it just seems a bit shallow in its characters and story. The ideas
that Brown presets are definitely interesting and keep me reading to find
out what will come next, but it's all quite plausable and lacks (for me,
someone who has never really bought into Christianity) the mind-altering
madness of Snow Crash, for example (which TDVC seems to have some parallels
with). I miss the epic nature of Quicksilver/Confusion that was so large
in scope. And they took me a long time to read. But they were a pain to
bring on airplanes (large, hardback, 1000 page books, heh. I didn't want
to wait for paperback). I'll probably update tomorrow or the next day,
at this rate, with how my review changes...

Meanwhile, my friend Dave Newton (no, not the manager of Ride, heh),
sent me this link.  Outstanding, and good too. Goes good with what my other 
good friend Dave (Biderman this time) sent me, this mp3.

Anyway...